Design Thinking—the secret sauce to growing our niche group to the largest women in tech community in The Netherlands

A presentation at Codemotion Berlin in October 2017 in Berlin, Germany by Jenny Shen

@jennyshen Design Thinking The secret sauce to growing our niche group to the largest women in tech community in The Netherlands Design Thinking @jennyshen #CodemoBLN October 2017

@JennyShen

@JennyShen A welcoming and collaborative community of women,
that aim to push the boundaries and promote women in UX . WINNER OF .NET GRASSROOTS EVENT OF THE YEAR 2015

@jennyshen

@jennyshen

@jennyshen

@jennyshen Ladies that UX Amsterdam Oct 2015

@jennyshen Ladies that UX Amsterdam today

@jennyshen

@jennyshen

@jennyshen 1400 30 Members New members pw 4 co-organisers 11 volunteers 1+ city in NL 325 active members pm

@jennyshen Challenges of organising a community

@jennyshen ⏱ "
$ Not growing; people stop joining; community stalls
Not able to standing out; competition with similar communities Not able to monetise or sustain the community Not having enough people/time to organise

@jennyshen Design Thinking

@jennyshen IS NOT just sticky notes

@jennyshen Design Thinking is a method of meeting humans’ needs and desires
in a technologically feasible and strategically viable way. “ Tim Brown, CEO and president of IDEO

@jennyshen

@jennyshen Humans need to find a product delightful in order to develop a desire to purchase and to own it. “ Bert Brautigam, Writer at TheNextWeb

@jennyshen Humans need to find a community delightful in order to develop a desire to join, participate and contribute . “

@jennyshen APPLYING Design Thinking

@jennyshen #1 “What do users want?”

@jennyshen % ➕ '

@jennyshen ( % ➕ '

#betterthanpizza

@jennyshen How could we make sponsorship info appealing & easily digestible ?

@jennyshen

@jennyshen #2 Empathy for users

@jennyshen Target Users ) * + ,

@jennyshen ) * + ,
I need to be a UX designer to join LTUX meetups…

@jennyshen

@jennyshen #3 Ask your users

@jennyshen

@jennyshen #4 Measure data

@jennyshen Wednesdays Thursdays

@jennyshen #5 Know your USPs

@jennyshen friendly & welcoming .

@jennyshen It's such a friendly and open minded community. But it's not just that, the level of kindness in this Meetup group is as high as the complexity and professionalism of the subject they talk. —Ewa Asides from valuable content, the event is always well- organised, the atmosphere is always welcoming and people are good. —Rachael Very nice atmosphere , friendly and well organized, these ladies know how to do it, super recommended. —Mirko

@jennyshen Don’t be afraid to pick a niche

@jennyshen Don’t be afraid to be different

@jennyshen #6 Teamwork

@jennyshen Vaiva Roxanne Nadia Jenny

@jennyshen Put yourselves in users’ shoes

Danke! jenny@jennyshen.com / amsterdam@ladiesthatux.com @jennyshen Jenny Shen

Jenny Shen
@jennyshen

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Design thinking is familiar to many designers as a framework in a product development process. Did you know that design thinking can help community managers solve their toughest challenges?

From growing the membership base to standing out among hundreds or even thousands of other communities, to sustaining the community with sponsorships or monetization, design thinking is the secret sauce to growing our niche community.

In this talk, you’ll learn how we overcame the biggest challenges for ‘Ladies that UX Amsterdam’ with design thinking, and how to put design thinking into practice.